Category: Cold.

New lenses.

September 22, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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Once again I had to scrape ice from my car before leaving for work, I really don’t like it 🙂 Still it doesn’t seem to have been that cold in the garden because nothing looks frozen at all. I guess that my high hedge and the fact that my cottage and my neighbors cottage stays warm enough during the night to keep the frost away until the morning comes.

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I left work a couple hours early today. I went to get my new contact lenses and wanted to try them for a couple of hours today so I would know what they were like. I don’t think it would have been a good idea to put them on tomorrow morning and then drive to work 🙂 🙂 These are test contacts, just to make sure they’ve made them right and I’ll have them until Monday two weeks when I’ll go to the optician again so we can see what I think of them.

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They aren’t perfect, I can see clearly from about 60cm (15 inches) to around 3 meters (much the same in yards). Then there’s a long distance where everything is slightly blurry but I could see the trees on the mountain very clear 🙂 (a mile or so away). It can depend on the light because the lenses are most sharp for shorter distances like reading in the middle because when one reed there’s brighter light and the pupil will become much smaller. The sun shone really bright today so I guess my pupils were quite small all the time. It’ll be exciting to drive to work tomorrow morning when it still is quite dark 🙂

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The lenses work really well together with the camera though, everything is sharp no matter what distance it is from me and the camera. I have no problems putting in lenses in my eye, old habits die hard or what they say but I did have huge problems getting them out 🙂 🙂 🙂 No matter what I did those lenses sat on the eye as if they were glued, no risk of them falling out by accident though 🙂 🙂 🙂 Then I remembered that one should always look up when picking them out. Didn’t take more than a second when I remembered that 🙂 🙂 But I think I need to buy eye drops because the air in the factory tends to be rather dry, except beside and inside the big washing machine and I’ll be working inside it tomorrow afternoon 🙂

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I think it is time for a big cup with hot cocoa and perhaps a couple of digestives. I’m really tired today, don’t know why, so it’s a good thing I took out those lenses because the odds of me falling asleep in front of the tv are pretty low 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

Autumn is definitely here now.

September 10, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

DSC_0001 (1) — Flowers on Venus Flytrap.

It’s not the nicest of days here. It rained quite a lot last night so the humidity is high but the temperature is low. There’s a rawness in the air that tells me that autumn definitely has arrived.

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There was actually some sunshine when we were out walking this morning but I can’t say it warmed up the air especially much. No wind though and very few flies around to annoy us. I really think they flies should have given up by now considering we’ve had two nights with below 0C (32F). It should be a sign telling them that it is time to hibernate till next year.

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The election for our parliament is tomorrow and I’m so tired of it now. The party leaders in each party behaves like spoiled kids as soon as they show up on tv. The worst thing is that the outcome is so uncertain that it most likely will take just as long (I think it was 175 days) to make a government as the last time. There are eight parties in the parliament and since many don’t talk to each other it will be very complicated to form any kind of government.

No matter what we’ll all know that the rich will get more rich and the poor will be even poorer and that almost all parties will be blaming the poor for being more poor even though the politicians are the ones to blame, some things will never change I’m afraid.

Have a great day!

Frost again.

September 2, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

a (1) — The photos are from both today and yesterday but actually covers the walk I had this afternoon.

We had a second morning with frost here today, two in one week is at least one too many and it’s still four more days until it usually arrives. I do hope this isn’t a sign about how winter will be, early and long.

The day has been pretty nice though, lots of clouds but still lots of sunshine. It never reached 20C (68F) but still felt pretty warm when the sun shone. It is a bit chilly now in the evening though so I have turned on one radiator, the one in the living room. The little heat it gives will dry up the chilly air and then travel up to my bedroom and make it just enough warm there for it to be comfortable.

Alma has behaved as good as she can the two latest walks, not shouting too much when we’re walking towards the forest and only pulled the leash in one direction. For being Alma that is more or less amazing 🙂 🙂 🙂 We were just about to pass the beekeepers when Salmiak the cat suddenly ran out in front of us and down towards my cottage (I’m starting to believe he does like that on purpose, he might get a kick out of being close to death 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) and that was just too much for both Albin and Alma 🙂 🙂 🙂 We did manage to come back home without me having a stroke because those two are just too much sometimes 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I was supposed to leave work a couple of hours early today because I wanted to finally buy that document shredder I’ve been thinking of buying for a couple of years now and I wanted to go when there was as few other costumers as possible. I really didn’t want to wait just because people buying new phones never can decide on what model they want to have 🙂 🙂 🙂 Everything was ok but then they suddenly gave my work friend the day off (without actually telling me, I got to know about it by accident since I heard other people talk about it), the one that is, together with me, responsible for the big washing machine. Fridays are now the day we go through it properly after they’ve finished to wash for the day.

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So I had to stay and had a long chat with the one responsible about it. I had said that me going a couple of hours early wasn’t that important but I really wanted to buy that thing now. I said I will stop working with the washing machine if I can’t know if I actually can leave early or take the day off if it all depends on him taking the day off even if he does so after I got the ok for taking time off. For reasons I’m not writing here he has to take days off with short notice now and then. I’m not annoyed about that but I really need to know that this doesn’t happen again. So I’m not really angry about it but I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, one day it might be something important I have to do.

It’s Friday and it is a bit chilly outside so I’ll make either hot chocolate and have some digestives with brie on or some rose-hip soup. Autumn is here and both a really great choices when the days get shorter and cooler.

Have a great day!

The first frost!

August 31, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

20220830_060424 — The first frost on the car. I had a few photos in the phone that I show today.

We had our first morning with frost yesterday. The temperature sunk to 0C (32F) for just long enough time to give me a sheet of ice over the entire car. I can’t say I liked it 🙂 🙂 🙂 Normally the first frost arrives at September 6 so it came a week early.

20220829_093136 — This rather aggressive spider refused to be pushed away from the toilets at work 🙂 🙂 The body is around four fifths of an inch.

When I’m at work my dogs are in the dog house/ yard or garage. They once dug a hole in the ground to get in to the garage so after that it’s now their indoor yard 🙂 They’ve created havoc in there so I rarely go inside to see what it looks like now days 🙂 🙂 The problem now days is that they easily get in there but Nova is old and not especially agile any more so quite often I need to open the garage door to let her out. Albin has never been agile in any way and he’s getting older as well so lately I’ve had to open the garage door for him too.

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So yesterday when I came home Alma came out from the dog house (a big part of the wood shed to be honest, it’s so big that I almost can stand straight and I would have no problems having a bed in there 🙂 ) but neither Albin or Nova came out. So I opened the garage door and out ran Albin but I couldn’t find Nova? In this garage/ wood shed, dog house they’ve saved the old outhouse (the old outdoors toilet) and remade it in to a garden shed. and it is sort of built in to the garage. I called after her but she didn’t make a sound, then something on the ground caught my eye.

DSC_0014 (7) — The photo really doesn’t show it but the leafs are now slowly changing colors.

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Turns out that the old lady had dug her way beneath the old outhouse and while doing that pushed the sand behind her blocking the way back out 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have no idea for how long she has been trapped there but it looked like she has had plenty of space anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂 So the first thing I had to do was to dig her out of that place and when i finally got her out I blocked the space with an old lawn mower 🙂 🙂 🙂 The lady might be old but she’s still pretty active 🙂 🙂 🙂

20220830_163829 — She had dug her way in beneath the old outhouse where the lawn mower now are pushed down and I could see her nose mowing from the little space between the wall and ground to the left where the rake stands.

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Have a great day!!

A stroll in Falköping.

April 26, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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We had a really nice weather yesterday, sunshine, little wind and rather warm, especially in the sunshine. I couldn’t enjoy it especially much though. I did think it smelled a bit strange when I made some pancakes on Sunday and it might have been one of the eggs that had started to turn bad. I woke up at 4 am and hurried down to the bathroom because I thought I was about to throw up. I never did but the rest of the day wasn’t the funniest I’ve ever had 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0016 (10) — This is a part of a sports center. Anything from soccer field to swimming and handball.

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I didn’t eat all day but I did drink a lot of rose-hip soup. That also made it possible for me to drive to the garage today because there were no risk what so ever that I would have to find a toilet during the time I was in Falköping 🙂 I asked them if they knew if they would start with my car early or late in the day because if they would start late I better take the bus home and go there the first thing tomorrow morning, so we decided it was better for me to go home and come tomorrow morning.

DSC_0020 (11) — I would most likely felt more sure they know what they do if those hand written signs weren’t there 🙂 They dress furnitures and fill upp the old stuffing as well. Is it called stuffing? well You know what I mean 🙂

DSC_0021 (9) — We call this pigeon Turkish dove. It looks very much like a Turtledove but is bigger.

DSC_0023 (10) — I also passed a second hand shop.

The garage is at the top of a mountain called Ålleberg and the bus/ train station is at the bottom of it so it was an easy walk 🙂 I was waiting for the bus in the cold wind and suddenly it arrived at a time it shouldn’t. Turns out it was the bus I thought I’ve missed that arrived rather late 🙂 Good for me but not for the bus driver. I jumped off the bus at the lake and there are still some cranes there and after that I had the 45 minute long walk home. Most parts of the walk was wind free thankfully so it was actually quite nice even though I really wasn’t that full of energy after yesterday 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0025 (10) — I like this old set. It costs around $ 55 US and I could easily repaint it at work.

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I was supposed to call the garage just before 5pm to check if they were ready with my car but they beat me to it. Turns out that the car is leaking oil so some kind of seal has to be changed. I’ve looked on the net and it’s actually something very cheap??!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well I guess they’ll need to pour in new oil as well but the seal itself is very cheap 🙂 So now we’ve decided that I’ll get my car after their lunch hour, at 1pm. I’ll drive to work after that, it takes around 45 minutes so I won’t be there for long before my working day is over 🙂 🙂 🙂

DSC_0030 (10) — They have a rather new miniature golf lane in the middle of the town.

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I’m so lucky to have that understanding employers! To be honest, living at the outskirts of the world as I do is tricky when the car needs to go to the garage, I actually would have to have two cars to make it work smoothly but with our prices on everything that would be more or less impossible. The last time I filled up my car with petrol it costed something around $10,78 US gallon. Personally I think there are lot of other things I rather use my money on 🙂

DSC_0037 (6) — The Daffodils flower in Falköping, here where I live they barely have buds. More photos of Falköping and my walk home in my next post.

Have a great day!

The winter continues.

April 8, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

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It has snowed again and it looks like this snow will stay all day but melt away tomorrow. It was quite nice this morning, despite it being chilly with snow in the air because there was no wind. We actually went out quite late for being us because I had forgotten to turn off the alarm. So up we went at 3:30 in the morning (well night might be a better word for it 🙂 🙂 ) because the dogs really wanted to go outside.

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I sat down in the sofa after that and fell asleep, I didn’t sleep well but for quite a lot of hours 🙂 🙂 Alma behaved reasonable well but I was worried when we reached the fields because we have lots of hares here now and I really didn’t want to deal with her screaming as soon as she see some wildlife. No wildlife in sight thankfully but I could hear the cranes trumpeting all around us.

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I fell asleep again as son as I sat down in the recliner 🙂 I should have had a pillow behind my neck but I must say it is really comfortable. I’ve also done the exercises I got from the physiotherapist and that is much what my day has been like. I’m still just as tired though and days like these I often wonder how on earth I manage to work all day and not fall asleep all the time 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I think I’ll do a peach cobbler tomorrow or apricot or pear one, I bought canned apricots, peaches and pears yesterday so why not make something like that, after all I have my ice cream to have with it 🙂 It looks like it finally has stopped snowing and now the sun shines as well 🙂

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I think it is time for a cup of tea and perhaps go outside for a while to enjoy some of the sunshine. After that I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv 🙂

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Have a great day!

I had to apologize to Alma.

April 7, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

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The snow started to fall yesterday and I think it stopped some time before I went up this morning, that would be around 4:40 am. They had siad that we would have below 0C (32F) temperatures during the night but I think it stayed at that temperature all night. (Most photos today are from yesterday when we took a walk after work)

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All roads were ice free but the smaller ones were covered in a thick layer of snow. They have been warning us for more snow today and strong winds but it looks as if that nasty weather has passed further north of here. The winds are sort of reasonable strong and the rain is pouring down. Everything is wet and muddy now and every time the dogs have been outside, just to quickly do what is necessary, I need to scrub the floors again. They are still guessing that we’ll get more snow later tonight and that the temperature will drop for a short while so that we’ll have a snow white world again at least for a short while.

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I went to the physiotherapist today and she checked how well or not my arms worked. We talked about my rheumatism but she didn’t think it would make any difference on this and we talked about Alma as well 🙂 🙂 Well I had to apologize to Alma when I came home today because she’s not guilty for this, she may have hastened the symptoms but she isn’t responsible for this. I have what she called an inpintchement ( I hope I heard that right, she’s Danish but spoke Swedish really well) in both my shoulders but the right one is much worse than the left.

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It means that my nerves are getting squeesed and therefore gives me pain. I got some exercises I should do and was told to stay at home for at least five working days. I’ll meet her in two weeks and if these exercises doesn’t help she will hand me over to a doctor. If I get better I’ll get more exercises to do and we’ll continue like that until I’m back to much better. This is a rather common thing to get when working with the hands above the head for way too many times and for too long periods without any chance to rest the arm and shoulder. Painters are especially common amongst those who get it.

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They are very helpful at work and now they started to discuss other people who risk getting this too. Nothing bad that doesn’t bring some good with it! I stopped by the lake on my way home and there are some cranes but I could see at least as many in the fields just outside my village. The last counting said 17200 and that was two days ago, it snowed way too much for them to be able to count any yesterday 🙂

Have a great day!

Winter will not give up.

April 5, 2022 · 2 Comments ·

It snowed a lot on my way home after work yesterday, even after I had come home but I still didn’t get a photos with falling snow and most of it had melted away by the time we came out on our walk. I must admit that it did annoy me a bit, photos with falling snow can look really nice.

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What I didn’t know was that it was going to snow even more after I’ve gone to bed, so I woke up to a white world and I must admit that it annoyed me even more 🙂 🙂 I was lucky though because the snow was easy to remove from the car but a rather unlucky because the roads were shining with a smooth surface of very slippery ice. Took forever to get to work.

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The day has been rather nice though and time away at work so I really can’t complain too much. It was enough warm again today so almost all of it had melted away before I came home. We’ll get more snow tomorrow night and the night after that but the days will be warm enough to melt it away. They say that the spring warmth will return just before Easter, I do hope they’re right!

e (6) — The “mail box” I thought I saw stood at the end of this road and I had much the same light.

Yesterday morning when I drove on the forest road I noticed something, far ahead, that sort of looked like a big mail box. Sort of brownish-black and it didn’t make sence to have a mail box there because the closest house are at least 500 meters (much the same in yards). I drove fairly slowly so it took some time to get close to it. It wasn’t a big mailbox, it was probably the same wild hog that I thought was a little bear some weeks ago 🙂 🙂 🙂

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It is time to sit down in my recliner, it is so comfortable that I fear I won’t get up from it when it is time to go to bed 🙂 🙂 Alma and Albin aren’t happy though, they both want to get up and sit in my lap but I refuse, this recliner is mine and mine alone 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

There’s lesson to learn here but I don’t know what.

April 3, 2022 · 4 Comments ·

DSC_0003 (2) — Not as cold last night as previous nights but still frost everywhere.

We’ve had another rather wonderful day here, a bit chilly in the wind but otherwise mostly sunny. I got a text message yesterday from my neighbors, they asked me if I wanted an armchair, You know the kind that one can lean back and then get a sort of foot step to rest the legs on and also a bit of a rocking chair?

DSC_0004 (2) — There was a halo around the sun this morning, it was so big that I only could photo a small part of it.

They didn’t have the space for it and I like those kinds of armchairs so I said yes. I had to remove the one I had first though, a rattan armchair that I can’t use since I doubt that I now days can get up from if I sit in it 🙂 🙂 🙂 That started a series of cleaning events. I found several more places where Teodor had had his toilet, especially beneath the rattan armchair. I also tossed away a lot of other things I really have no need for and continued out to the kitchen where I finally removed all cardboard boxes and moved them to the car so that I can put them in the recycling containers.

DSC_0012 (1) — This photo was taken two seconds before the hare crossed the field.

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I also filled two empty big dog food sacks with all kinds of rubbish and then thankfully they asked me to come over and have a cup of coffee and also see what kinds of seeds we’re having since we’ll grow our vegetables together this year. If they hadn’t only god knows how much I had cleaned before I would fall down to the floor totally exhausted 🙂 🙂 🙂

a (494) — The rest of the photos are from the folder “For a rainy day”.

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We walked down to the creek again this morning. Everything went well, ok Alma had to walk behind me so that she couldn’t rip my shoulder to pieces again. Then we saw a hare running across a field. I don’t know why but she starts to scream as if she is ripped apart by something and I really can’t calm her down. Albin is much the same but he’s relatively quiet compared to her. The walk was sort of destroyed after that even though she finally did calm down. We had just arrived to the gate here when she suddenly saw another hare cross the cow pasture outside my property. She just sat down and quietly looked at it???

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I guess I can learn something from this but I’m not sure what 🙂 🙂 🙂 She’s rather impossible when we’re out walking (some days are really good though) but the coolest dog in the world when we’re at home. She gets insane if she sees a wild animal when we’re out walking but really doesn’t care if we’re at home or at least close to it. Doesn’t she like taking walks? Can You figure out what the lesson here is since I really can’t?

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It is time to go down to my armchair and most likely fall asleep in it 🙂 I think I actually will sleep better there since no dog will be able to share it with me 🙂 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

This is the seventh one :-)

April 2, 2022April 2, 2022 · 6 Comments ·

The farmer feeds his cattle just outside my cottage and silage doesn’t smell especially nice to be honest, a heavy sweetish stale scent that eats its way in to the brain 🙂

So a new place once again and now I have 99.98% left of space to use before I need to get a new place again 🙂 🙂 I have however actually paid for having the domain name locked to me, until now anyone actually could use the name Cottage by the Cranelake if they so had wished to. I chose this theme but that can change if I find any I like better later on 🙂

We’re having another sunny and beautiful day here, cold though and quite windy. I can hear the wind blowing but when I go outside nothing moves. the positive side of living at the bottom a slope, the negative side is that it is always a couple of degrees colder down here when it is cold. Then again it usually is hotter here as well on hot days so I guess it evens out even if it really doesn’t feel that way 🙂 🙂 🙂

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I wanted to go out on the bog again this morning but since the dogs didn’t like it yesterday we instead walked down to the creek and back up to the little peninsula by the bog but some distance away from where we walked yesterday. Both Albin and Alma were staring towards the island all the time so I guess they still felt something was out there, Nova didn’t care at all and enjoyed the sunshine instead, just like I did 🙂

Besides that I’ve done very little. Napped for a while and I’ve had loads of tea. I’ve also thawed some soil so that I can plant a mango pit. I do that every now and again and the little tree thrives until winter comes and the air in the cottage gets too dry, then it lose all its leafs and dies. This year I think of trying having a see through plastic bag around it so that the humidity around it will stay high all the time.

I have made some ice cream but haven’t tested it yet. Vanilla and a french jam with four fruits in it and to make it taste more I also added some lemon juice and I do hope I poured in enough of it. I’ll know better in an hour or so 🙂 The dogs and I have also had pancakes for dinner 🙂 Something we all enjoy 🙂

In this and the last photo I’ve tried to capture those sparkling dots from frost and sunshine but it’s tricky 🙂

Have a great day!